The Sitting Disease

This article is kind of a continuation of the article I wrote several weeks ago about trying not to take the easy way all of the time and being more mindful of your activity level or lack thereof.

The other day, I was commissioned by my siblings to take my mom to a doctor’s appointment in St. Catharines. So that morning I not only took her to the appointment in St. Catharines, but on our return to Port Colborne, we stopped to do her blood work downtown. As I was standing in the waiting room waiting for her to have her blood drawn, I realized that from 8am when I left my house to 10:30am, if I didn’t have the mindset that I have about sitting and doing nothing, I would have spent two hours and fifteen minutes of the two hours and thirty minutes that morning sitting down, right after a seven hour sleep, and it was only 10:30am!

These thoughts, strange as it may seem, are the kind of thoughts that go through my head constantly. The only time I sat down that morning was in the car driving. Otherwise, I was standing. I was standing in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, standing in the doctor’s examination room and standing in the waiting room at the Life Labs Clinic.

Typically, most people who are not mindful of their activity level would be seated most of the morning of a day like that.

If I attend a long conference or meeting, I typically don’t sit down until the event actually starts, but rather I stand behind my chair until I have to sit down. If I find myself on a bus and someone is looking for a seat and there isn’t one, I would be the first to offer mine. I would much rather stand than sit where most people would rather sit than stand. It’s all in your mindset. Just because there are chairs in a room or on a bus, doesn’t necessarily mean you have to sit. There were plenty of empty chairs for me to sit down in that morning, but I chose to stand.

Research has shown that lack of activity……”the sitting disease” they refer to it now, is just as detrimental to your health as smoking! Yes, it’s true! So don’t sit, don’t smoke either, and certainly don’t sit and smoke!

Something to think about.

Gino